I remember being young and being utterly convinced that the world was about to destroy itself. I remember not wanting to marry or have children because I feared that there would be no future for them. But I did marry, I did have children and the fear faded. I remember the hope I felt when the Berlin wall came down. The way I felt as though something had been released from my heart. Now, sometimes, I hear my children asking the same questions as I once did. The shadow falls on their generation as it once did on mine. And before that on my parents and their parents. Perhaps it has always been this way. x

I know a lot of my friends seemed to use it as an excuse not to have children, too many people already in an overcorwded world and all that.

I think I've always had a great deal of hope for the world, and that we *can* make things better. I still feel that way. But then I was an unexpected child, born to my parents after a previous miscarriage when they thought they would never have another child. Perhaps that is what colors my vision - to be the unexpected, the unplanned for event.

And I am firmly convinced life finds a way, and will always find a way. If not us, then something else, if not here, then somewhere else. We just need to get over ourselves and be a part of everything around us, instead of so human centric. ;^)